Quote:
Police will soon have vehicle thieves' and wanted persons' license plate numbers on Interstate 90. Cutting-edge automated cameras that capture plates and alert dispatchers of criminals associated with the number will be installed along I-90, Post Falls Police Lt. Scot Haug said.
"Anytime technology can help secure a major interstate, in this case I-90 that runs between Seattle and Chicago, that's a real benefit to law enforcement," Haug said. "If there's an Amber Alert (for a missing person) out of, say, Shoshone or Spokane County, this will alert us immediately if a subject passes a location." The cameras can read license plates of vehicles traveling more than 100 mph and at night.
Under a joint project by Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene and the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department, a $125,000 Department of Homeland Security grant has funded eight cameras to be placed at two locations along I-90. Each camera will focus on a lane of traffic and alert dispatchers about the direction of travel, time, a vehicle description and the crime.
The equipment will be purchased by the end of November and likely will be in operation this winter or spring, Haug said. Haug said the specific locations haven't been determined, but one will likely be in Post Falls and the other in Coeur d'Alene."They'll likely be placed on the lower portion of bridges," Haug said.
Haug said the focus early on will be stolen vehicles, terrorist and Amber alerts.
"This is a tool to find a person or stolen vehicle," he said. "It's a silent partner." Eventually, it could be used for finding wanted people.
Haug believes the cameras will be a big benefit for police and the public, but they won't stretch law enforcement resources. "I don't anticipate that this will result in an overwhelming amount of work -- maybe a couple stolen vehicles a week," he said.The cameras capture mostly the license plate number, not the entire vehicle or who is driving, Haug said."They zero in on the front and back of the vehicle where the license plates are at," he said. "It looks for those numbers and gives an alert if there's a hit."
Haug said he believes not many agencies have such technology. "Los Angeles uses this technology in a more mobile environment on patrol cars, and it's been very successful for them so far," he said. "It allows officers to drive through the parking lot of a mall and scan several hundred plates in a matter of a couple minutes."
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Hmmm, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.....White power capitol of North America.
What happens to the plate numbers scanned that don't match the "wanted list", stored or discarded?
No problem if you haven't done anything wrong, right? Unless they make a mistake, but you'd only be locked up in Cuba for a short time until they straighten it out. Look how smoothly the airports run.
Or they suddenly change the law to make your normal routine illegal. Check your plate against the list of permits for interstate travel? Do you have a permit to visit Aunt Edith?
Standard procedure to put the enforcement in place before making, or changing, the rules. But hell, who's going to Idaho anyway...I mean they certainly wouldn't do that around here, would they.
I'm just paranoid...nevermind....if you can't trust the government, who can you trust? Not to worry...move along, nothing to see here.
